My youngest is one tomorrow. I’ve been having a retrospective moment or two.

Firstly, it is unreal how quickly this year has gone. I know we all say this but it’s actually a bit scary. I guess it is testament to how much rushing around having three (or any) children makes you do. Adding to that is: work, which has gone flip-tits in a good, but time and energy consuming, way; my wife’s blogging, which is absolutely flying; and that she published the book she’s dreamed of for many years. It’s no wonder it’s all a bit a blur!

This birthday has also made my think back to all our children’s births. It’s hard now to properly imagine them as newborns as they all look grown up their own ways.

All three of our births were very different and in all three my wife was a total superhero. The second stars of the show were the midwives, if any of you are reading this then much respect and admiration to you. They fought to keep Renee the centre of everything each time.

There’s the first midwife who, despite having been awake for well clear of 36 hours, told the entire labour ward that they could essentially stick their processes up their arse and that Renee was getting an epidural no matter what.

I’ll also never forget the midwife who delivered our second facing off against a group of doctors and consultants who wanted to take Renee to theatre as she’d been pushing for too long – “No! You will give her five more minutes”. And she was right, Clara was born naturally inside five minutes. What a legend!

And the third, which was actually relatively straightforward as both a go (I said relative ladies!). Well she just made it a great experience from start to finish.

So there you go, the product of my brain on a train journey shortly before my son’s birthday. Sorry for the slightly rambling nature of this post. I’m struggling to find time to write anything at the moment so if I have to squeeze what could have been two posts into one, then so be it.

10,000 steps is a good target to start with. This seems like a big number, and it is, but it’s very doable. It’s about 1hr 15mins a day. I’ve found that 5 mins each way home-station and 20 mins station-work is about 8000, it doesn’t take much to bump it up. There are some ideas here.

This alone will start to make a difference. Firstly your amount of exercise will go up – result! And , secondly it forces you to think about your activity levels, plan for it, make time for it – this is how we make space for more in the future.

Making this the first good habit you build sets a great foundation. It’s good for you and, if you’re walking instead of travelling by car, then so are your children and it’s good for them too.

I love to exercise, and a lot of the things I like are purely personal, but fostering good habits in my children is my no1 motivation for doing it. These figures are terrifying and we parents are at the front line in making a change. Society will not protect our children for us.

We can blame the food industry, computer games or any number of other external factors, but we create the food and culture in our families. We control our children’s education and attitude. And we set the examples which they will follow (on a good day at least).

This is where the fitness industry becomes less helpful. We do not need ‘6 weeks to bigger gunz or Lopez buns’. Were’s the lesson in that? We need to make small, sustainable changes that can be built upon.

How far you take this is up to you and your situation. The level and intensity of activity is your choice, no one expects anyone to turn into an Arnie-at-his prime (especially the Mums!). However, inactivity can no longer be an option – we must do enough to inspire good habits in our children.

The chart will not change itself, clearly the steps our governments and the people that make and sell the food we eat are not being effective. So it is up to us, the parents, the people with the greatest interest in having healthy children to make the line point downwards.

We’re all adults, we know how much is really enough exercise and we also know what foods are actually just shit.

If we think it’s important, then let’s change it. I’ve seen in various posts and comments that plenty of people set health resolutions at the start of the year. How are they going?

If you’re struggling for motivation then think of you children. If you can’t do it for you, then do it to set a good example for them.

TV On The Radio are one of those bands that are consistently excellent. I somehow missed their latest album being released towards the end of 2014 and found it this week. Maybe it was only just added to Google Play….

Anyway, it’s taken a bit more warming to than some of their other albums bit is very good stuff nonetheless.